Is she flirting? ‘Only if you look for them,’ he flirts back mechanically, smiling weakly, and Suki senses something. She holds out his hands to the side and intimately bellows, ‘WHAT’S UP WITH YOU, SWEETHEART?’
He shrugs. ‘Toby’s been in here, winding me up . . .’ and before he can finish she has pulled him to his feet and her arms are round his waist, her hands twanging the waistband of his underpants in sympathy. ‘YOU IGNORE HIM, HE’S JUST JEALOUS ’CAUSE YOU’RE BETTER AT THIS THAN HE IS.’ She looks up at him, her chin poking his chest. ‘YOU’RE A NATURAL, YOU KNOW YOU ARE.’
The floor manager is at the door. ‘Ready for you now, guys.’
‘WE’RE GREAT TOGETHER, AREN’T WE, ME AND YOU. SUKI AND DEX, DEX AND SUKI? WE’RE GOING TO KNOCK EM DEAD.’ Suddenly she kisses him once, very hard, as if rubber-stamping a document. ‘MORE OF THAT LATER, GOLDEN BOY,’ she says in his ear, then picks up her bottle of water and bounds out onto the studio floor.
Dexter takes a moment to look at his reflection in the mirror. Golden Boy. He sighs and presses all ten fingers hard into his skull and tries not to think about his mother. Hold it together, don’t foul this up. Be good. Do something good. He smiles the smile that he keeps especially for use on television, picks up his spiked water bottle, and heads out onto the studio floor.
Suki waits for him at the edge of the immense set, taking his hand and squeezing it. The crew are running round, patting his shoulder and punching his arm matily as they pass, and high above their heads ironic go-go dancers in bikinis and cowboy boots stretch out their calves in their ironic cages. Toby Moray is doing the warm-up, and getting big laughs too, until suddenly he’s introducing them, a big hand please for your hosts tonight, Suki Meadows and Dexter Mayhew!
He doesn’t want to go. Music thumps from the speakers: ‘Start the Dance’ by The Prodigy, and he wants to stay here in the wings, but Suki is tugging on his hand, and suddenly she is bounding out into the bright studio lights, bawling:
‘ALLLLLLLLLLRIGGGGGGHHHHHT!’
Dexter follows on, the suave and urbane half of the presenting duo. As always the set involves a lot of scaffolding, and they climb the ramps until they’re looking down at the audience below them, Suki chattering all the way: ‘LOOK AT YOU, YOU’RE ALL GORGEOUS, ARE YOU READY TO HAVE A GREAT TIME? MAKE SOME NOISE!’ Dexter stands mute on the gantry next to her, the microphone dead in his hand as he realises that he is drunk. His big break on live national television and he is sodden with vodka, dizzy with it. The gantry seems impossibly high, far higher than in rehearsals, and he wants to lie down but if he does this there’s a chance that two million people will notice, so he assumes the manner and offers:
‘Elloyoulothowareyouallfeelingalright?’
A single clear male voice sails up to the gantry. ‘Wanker!’
Dexter seeks out the heckler, a skinny, grinning twerp with Wonder Stuff hair, but it gets a laugh, a big laugh. Even the cameramen are laughing. ‘My agent, ladies and gentlemen,’ replies Dexter, and there’s a ripple of amusement, but that’s all. They must have read the papers. Is this the most odious man on television? Good God, it’s true, he thinks. They hate me.
‘One minute everyone,’ shouts the floor manager, and Dexter suddenly feels like he’s standing on a scaffold. He searches the crowd for a friendly face, but there are none and once again he wishes Emma were here. He could show-off for Emma, be at his best if Emma or his mother were here, but they’re not, just this leering, jeering crowd of people much, much younger than himself. He has got to find a bit of spirit from somewhere, a bit of attitude and with the laser logic of the drunk he decides that alcohol might help, because why not? The damage is already done. The go-go dancers stand poised in their cages, the cameras glide into place, and he unscrews the lid of his illicit bottle, raises it, swallows and winces. Water. The water bottle contains water. Someone has replaced the vodka in his water bottle with—
Suki has his bottle.
Thirty seconds to air. She has picked up the wrong bottle. She is holding it in her hand now, a clubby little accessory.
Twenty seconds to air. She is unscrewing the lid.
‘Are you keeping hold of that?’ he squeaks.
‘THAT’S ALRIGHT, ISN’T IT?’ She bounces on her toes like a prizefighter.
‘I’ve got your bottle by mistake.’
‘SO? WIPE THE TOP!’
Ten seconds to air and the audience starts to cheer and roar, the dancers hold onto the bars of their cages and start to gyrate as Suki raises the bottle to her lips.
Seven, six, five . . .
He reaches for the bottle, but she knocks his hand away laughing.
‘GET OFF, DEXTER, YOU’VE GOT YOUR OWN!’
Four, three, two . . .
‘But it isn’t water,’ he says.
She gulps it down.
Roll titles.
And now Suki is coughing, red-faced and spluttering as guitars crash over the speakers, drums pound, go-go dancers writhe and a camera on wires swoops down from the high ceiling like a bird of prey, soaring over the audience’s heads towards the presenters, so that it seems to the viewers at home as if three hundred young people are cheering an attractive woman as she stands on scaffolding and retches.
The music fades, and all you can hear is Suki coughing. Dexter has frozen, dried, dead on air and drunkenly crashing his own vehicle. The plane is going down, the ground looming up to meet him. ‘Say something Dexter,’ says a voice in his earpiece. ‘Hello? Dexter? Say something?’ but his brain won’t work and his mouth won’t work, and he stands there, dumb in every way. The seconds stretch.
But thank God for Suki, a true professional, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘WELL PROOF THERE THAT WE’RE GOING OUT LIVE!’ and there’s a relieved little flurry of laughter from the audience. ‘IT’S ALL GOING VERY WELL SO FAR, ISN’T IT, DEX?’ She jabs him in the ribs with a finger, and he springs to life.
‘Sorry about Suki there—’ he says. ‘The bottle’s got vodka in it!’ and he does the little comic wriggle of the wrist that suggests a secret drinker, and there’s another laugh, and he feels better. Suki laughs too, nudges him and raises a fist, says, ‘Why I oughta . . .’ Three Stooges-style, and only he can see the glint of contempt behind the bubbliness. He latches onto the safety of the autocue.
‘Welcome to the Late-Night Lock-In, I’m Dexter Mayhew—’
‘—AND I’M SUKI MEADOWS!’
And they’re back on course, introducing the Friday night feast of great comedy and music, appealing and attractive like the two coolest kids at school. ‘So without further ado, let’s make some noise please—’ He flings his arm out behind him, like a ring-master ‘—and give a big Late-Night Lock-In welcome to Shed! Seven!’
The camera swoops away from them as if it has lost interest, and now the voices from the gallery are chattering in his head over the sound of the band. ‘Everything alright there, Suki?’ says the producer. Dexter looks at Suki pleadingly. She looks back, eyes narrowed. She could tell them: Dexter’s on the booze, he’s drunk, the man’s a mess, an amateur, not to be trusted.
‘All fine,’ she says. ‘Just went down the wrong way, that’s all.’
‘We’ll send someone to fix your make-up. Two minutes, people. And Dexter, keep it together, will you?’
Yes, keep it together, he tells himself, but the monitors tell him there are fifty-six minutes and twenty-two seconds to go, and he’s really not sure if he can.
∗ ∗ ∗
Applause! Applause like she has never heard, rebounding off the walls of the sports hall. And yes, the band were flat and the singers sharp, and yes there were a few technical problems with missing props and collapsing sets, and of course it’s hard to imagine a more forgiving audience, but still it is a triumph. The death of Nancy leaves even Mr Routledge, Chemistry, weeping and the chase over the London rooftops, with the cast in silhouette, is a spectacular coup de théâtre met by the kind of cooing and gasping that u
sually greets fireworks displays. As predicted Sonya Richards has shone, leaving Martin Dawson grinding his teeth as she soaks up the largest round of applause. There have been ovations and encores and now people are stamping on the benches and hanging off the climbing apparatus and Emma is being dragged on stage by Sonya who is crying, God, actually crying, clutching Emma’s hand and saying well done, Miss, amazing, amazing. A school production, it is the smallest imaginable triumph but Emma’s heart is beating in her chest and she can’t stop grinning as the band play a cacophonous ‘Consider Yourself’ and she holds the hands of fourteen-year-olds and bows and bows again. She feels the elation of doing something well, and for the first time in ten weeks she no longer wants to kick Lionel Bart.
At the drinks afterwards, own-brand cola flows like wine, and there are also five bottles of sparkling perry to share among the adults. Ian sits in a corner of the sports hall with a plate of mini kievs and a plastic cup of Beecham’s Powders that he has brought to the party specially, and he massages his sinuses, smiles and waits patiently as Emma soaks up the praise. ‘Good enough for the West End!’ someone says, somewhat unrealistically, and she doesn’t even mind when Rodney Chance, her Fagin, boozy on spiked Panda Pops, tells her that she’s ‘pretty fit for a teacher’. Mr Godalming (‘please, call me Phil’) congratulates her while Fiona, ruddy-cheeked like a farmer’s wife, looks on, bored and bad tempered. ‘We should talk, in September, about your future here,’ says Phil, leaning in and kissing her goodbye, causing some of the kids, and some of the staff, to make a ‘whoooo’ noise.
Unlike most showbusiness parties it’s all over by nine forty-five, and instead of a stretch limo, Emma and Ian take the 55, the 19 and the Piccadilly Line home. ‘I’m so proud of you—’ says Ian, his head resting against hers ‘—but I think it’s settled on my lungs.’
As soon as she enters the flat she can smell the flowers. The vast bouquet of red roses lolls in a casserole on the kitchen table.
‘Oh my God, Ian, they’re beautiful.’
‘Not from me,’ he mumbles.
‘Oh. Who then?’
‘Golden Boy, I expect. They came this morning. Completely over the top if you ask me. I’m going to have a hot bath. See if I can shift it.’
She removes her coat and opens the small card. ‘Apologies for sulking. Hope it goes well tonight. Much love Dx’. That’s all. She reads it twice, looks at her watch, and quickly turns on the TV to watch Dexter’s big break.
Forty-five minutes later, as the final credits roll, she frowns and tries to make sense of what she has just seen. She doesn’t know much about television, but she is pretty sure that Dexter hasn’t shone. He has looked shaky, actually frightened sometimes. Fluffing lines, looking at the wrong camera, he has seemed amateurish and inept and as if sensing his unease the people he has interviewed – the rapper on tour, the four cocky young Mancunians – have responded with disdain or sarcasm. The studio audience glares too, like surly teenagers at a pantomime, arms crossed high on their chests. For the first time since she met him he appears to be making an effort. Might he be, well, drunk? She doesn’t know much about the media, but she can recognise a car crashing. By the time the last band plays out her hand has come to cover her face, and she knows enough about TV to know this is not ideal. There’s a lot of irony about these days, but surely not to the extent that booing is good.
She turns the TV off. From the bathroom comes the sound of Ian honking into a flannel. She closes the door and picks up the phone, moulding her mouth into a congratulatory smile and in an empty flat in Belsize Park the answering machine picks up. ‘So – talk to me!’ says Dexter, and Emma goes into her act. ‘Hey you! Hiya! I know you’re at the party so just wanted to say, well first of all, thank you for the flowers. So beautiful, Dex, you shouldn’t have. But mainly – Well! Done! You! You were fantastic, just really relaxed and funny, I thought it was fantastic, just a really, really, great, great show, really.’ She hesitates: don’t say ‘really’. If you say ‘really’ too often it sounds like ‘not-really’. She continues. ‘I’m still not sure about that t-shirt-under-suit-jacket-thing, and it’s always refreshing to see women dancing in cages, but Dexter, apart from that, it was just excellent. Really. I’m really so proud of you, Dex. In case you’re interested, Oliver! went alright too.’
She senses her own performance is losing conviction now, and decides to bring it to a close.
‘So. There you go. We’ve both got something to celebrate! Thanks again for the roses. Have a good night. Let’s talk tomorrow. I’m seeing you Tuesday, is that right? And well done, you. Seriously. Well done you. Bye.’
At the party afterwards Dexter stands alone at the bar, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. People cross to congratulate him but no-one lingers long and the pats on the shoulder have come to feel like consolation or, at best, well done on missing that penalty. He has continued to drink steadily but the champagne seems stale in his mouth and nothing seems to lift the sense of disappointment, anti-climax, creeping shame.
‘Wahey,’ says Suki Meadows in a contemplative mood. Once the co-star, now clearly the star, she sits next to him. ‘Look at you, all mean and moody.’
‘Hey, Suki.’
‘So! That went well, I thought!’
Dexter is unconvinced but they chink glasses just the same. ‘Sorry about that . . . booze thing. I owe you an apology.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘It was just something to loosen me up, you know.’
‘Still, we should talk about it. Some other time.’
‘Okay.’
‘Because I’m not going out there again with you off your tits, Dex.’
‘I know. You won’t. And I’ll make it up to you.’
She leans her shoulder against his, and puts her chin on his shoulder. ‘Next week?’
‘Next week?’
‘Buy me dinner. Somewhere expensive, mind. Next Tuesday.’
Her forehead is touching his now, her hand on his thigh. He was meant to be having dinner with Emma on Tuesday, but knows that he can always cancel Emma, she won’t mind. ‘Okay. Next Tuesday.’
‘Can’t wait.’ She pinches his thigh. ‘So. You gonna cheer up now?’
‘I’ll try.’
Suki Meadows leans over and kisses his cheek, then puts her mouth very, very close to his ear.
‘NOW COME AND SAY HELLO TO MY MUUUUUUM!’
CHAPTER NINE
Cigarettes and Alcohol
SATURDAY, 15 JULY 1995
Walthamstow and Soho
Portrait In Crimson
A novel
by Emma T. Wilde
Chapter 1
DCI Penny Something had seen some murder scenes in her time, but never one as as this.
‘Has the body been moved?’ she snapped
The words glowed in bilious green on the word-processor’s screen: the product of a whole morning’s work. She sat at the tiny school desk in the tiny back room of the tiny new flat, read the words, then read them again while behind her the immersion heater gurgled in derision.
At weekends, or in the evenings if she could find the energy, Emma wrote. She had made a start on two novels (one set in a gulag, the other in a post-apocalyptic future), a children’s picture book, with her own illustrations, about a giraffe with a short neck, a gritty, angry TV drama about social workers called ‘Tough Shit’, a fringe play about the complex emotional lives of twenty-somethings, a fantasy novel for teenagers featuring evil robot teachers, a stream-of-consciousness radio play about a dying Suffragette, a comic strip and a sonnet. None had been completed, not even the fourteen lines of sonnet.
These words on the screen represented her latest project, an attempt at a series of commercial, discreetly feminist crime novels. She had read all of Agatha Christie at eleven years old, and later lots of Chandler and James M. Cain too. There seemed no reason why she shouldn’t try writing something in between, but she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the sam
e – you couldn’t just soak it up then squeeze it out again. She found herself unable to think of a name for her detective, let alone a cohesive original plot, and even her pseudonym was poor: Emma T. Wilde? She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things. She had tried being in a band, writing plays and children’s books, she had tried acting and getting a job in publishing. Perhaps crime fiction was just another failed project to place alongside trapeze, Buddhism and Spanish. She used the computer’s word-count feature. Thirty-five words, including the title page and her rotten pseudonym. Emma groaned, released the hydraulic lever on the side of her office chair and sank a little closer to the carpet.
There was a knock on the plywood door. ‘How are things in the Anne Frank wing?’
That line again. For Ian, a joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hands like a cheap umbrella. When they had first started seeing each other, approximately ninety per cent of what Ian said came under the heading of ‘humour’ in that it involved a pun, a funny voice, some comic intent. Over time she had hoped to get this down to forty per cent, forty being a workable allowance, but nearly two years later the figure stood at seventy-five, and domestic life continued against this tinnitus of mirth. Was it really possible for someone to be ‘on’ for the best part of two years? She had got rid of his black bedsheets, the beer mats, secretly culled his underpants and there were fewer of his famous ‘Summer Roasts’, but even so she was reaching the limits of how much it’s possible to change a man.
‘Nice cup of tea for the lady?’ he said, in the voice of a cockney char.
‘No thanks, love.’
‘Eggy bread?’ Scottish now. ‘Can ae do you some eggy bread, ma wee snootch?’
Snootch was a recent development. When pressed to justify himself, Ian had explained that it was because she was just so snootchy, so very, very snootch. There’d been a suggestion that she might reciprocate by calling him skootch; skootch and snootch, snootchy and skootchy, but it hadn’t stuck.